Turbulent weather
by SlytherinElektra
Summary: Something's wrong with Spock. Nobody knows exactly why. The Enterprise is trapped in a space storm with a first officer that keeps getting sicker. Also on AO3
1. Chapter 1

It all started simply enough, with a harmless cough and a couple of bad dreams. Nothing to worry about, nothing too serious. Maybe it was just exhaustion, it would probably go away on its own.

Uhura and Spock often slept in the same bed and while the half Vulcan was usually still as a statue and generally very quiet but he recently started having nightmares, that were becoming increasingly frequent. Nyota felt him trash and move around, heard soft whimpers and whispered "no"s, saw his face scrunched in pain and fear. It was most unsettling.

Spock saw his mother fall again on that Vulcan cliff, saw her die while he couldn't do anything (over and over, over and over) and watching the place he'd called home all his life, the place where he'd grown up, the place that had shaped him as a person and a given him an identity - crumble into nothingness. And the one person that had shown him that it was ok to be how he was, who had supported him throught everything and she was falling hopelessly ot her death while he uselessly watched, powerless, unable to help her or their home.

Other times it was Jim's death that haunted him at night. He would see it all again and they ended up there, in opposite sides of the glass. His best friend was dying right before his eyes and their hands were nearly touching and Spock felt he was exploding inside with sorrow, with grief, with hoplessness... And once again he was powerless as he watched a person as he loved die again.

Some times he woke up with a scream, other times his cheeks were wet with tears. That last time the world spun quickly around him as he awoke, breathing heavily, still unsure of what was reality and what was dream. He looked at Nyota next to him, making sure through blurry eyes that she was okay and tried to put himself together. He was dizzy and still incredibly upset by what his dream and the room kept spinning so he stumbled to the toilet of Uhura's quarters where he was repeatedly sick. Which was something that hadn't happened to him since he was a child.

He looked at himself in the mirror and saw that fragile child again in his pale, haggard reaction, eyes bright and sad. As he was cleaning his mouth, Spock felt a hand in his shoulder and nearly jumped.

Nyota had opened an eye when Spock stumbled out of the bed, and became completely awake when she heard the sounds of retching. She hadn't even known that Vulcans could do that, specially not for so long. So she appeared behind him.

"What's wrong? Did you have another nightmare?"

"Indeed, very vivid. In this occasion it was you who died in front of me, and I...could not... stop it"

"Awww... Don't worry."

"When I awoke, the complete quarters were...moving. It was most unusual."

"Are you feeling better now?"

"I can manage the -"

"Spock" she interrupted. There was no need for Vulcan stoicisms with her. They knew each too well for that. "Are you feeling better?"

"Only slightly, if I am truthful."

"Let me get you back to bed." She said and helped him back into the bed.

When they got to the bed, Uhura could still she the horror in his face. Usually she loved seeing the emotions peak under the Vulcan surface, but not this time. He seemed... distressed, afraid. She caressed his cheek with her hand, softly, carefully, like she knew he liked it, trying to give him some comfort.

"It's okay, it was just a dream. I'm not going anywhere, calm down. Ssssh."

They cuddled for a bit until it was time to wake up and go back to their positions. Nyota told him to tell Dr. McCoy about his nightmares but Spock refused, claiming they were irrelevant. Well, his horror filled, tear tracked face from yesterday seemed to differ. And he hadn't had any before, why now? What if this was a symptom of something bigger? What if Spock was really sick?

Maybe she was just being too paranoid, worrying too much. Spock had been through a lot and didn't have a lot of room to express supressed emotions. Maybe this was his subconscious' way of dealing with trauma. He really should find better ways, but of course he was conflicted about his legacy, with all the bad things he heard about it over the years. Or maybe not. All that she knew was that she was going to keep a closer eye on him.

Much like Jim was doing.

It hadn't been anything worrisome, just a small cough, but it bothered the hell out of Jim. Spock never made annoying noises, never blew his nose or rasp, nothing. When he spoke he could be sometimes annoying, but hey, all of them had their moments. And this is a whole new level of annoying, but a different dimension of bothering. Not because it was unpleasant but because it was Spock and Spock shouldn't sound so...human.

Jim had to give credit where credit was due, and it was true Spock had worked on people not noticing it, finding the most unexpected tricks to distract people when he had to cough. He'd told him to go to see Bones about a million times, even told Bones to take him by force if it was necessary, but when he finally managed to get them together Bones didn't find anything that could be causing the cough. No explanation.

Which meant that: a) it was nothing serious, something environmental that had disappeared, b) it was psychological (which posed a whole new sets of problems) or whatever was causing that cough was so alien and advanced that his sensors couldn't detect it. This gave wings to Spock's continuous "there is no need for this" tirade, which was growing more unpleasant than the cough itself. But Jim was worried, because there was something wrong, there had to be something wrong for his first officer to cough like that when he obviously didn't want to.

And denial wasn't going to solve anything. But what was Jim supposed to do? They'd gone to sickbay and found nothing. And there weren't any specialists aboard the enterprise so he could he get a second opinion or anything. Maybe he was making too big a deal out of it, but... He couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something else. Anyways, there was an anomaly in a galaxy nearby and when they went to check it out Jim forgot about the cough and how annoyed he was.

They were in the middle of some strange space storm, no idea of where it had come from trying to get out when the cough made an unwelcome appearance. He'd been coughing a bit the whole day after that terrible night, and it was becoming a bit too much.

Spock didn't want to be a bother while the situation was so dire so he stepped out of the bridge so he could cough in peace, with no one looking at him. But strangely enough, the more he did it, the more difficult it became for him to breathe. Clutching the wall behind him, Spock searched through his memories but found no recollection of any sickness like this in his family.

He wanted to go back to the bridge, help so that the ship would stop shaking, couldn't stop shaking himself. The three or fours coughs stuck in his throat had evolved into a full coughing fit and dark spots were appearing in his vision. But the needs of the many... he needed to get back out there. He tried and tried and but couldn't move, couldn't breathe.

"Where's Spock?" Jim asked "This is a damned sicientific emergency! Uhura, get him back here"

Nyota just nodded and ran to where she'd seen Spock leave, worried both for the integrity of the ship and for the integrity of his boyfriend – he wouldn't have left if he didn't have a reason.

"We need you in the bridge, Spock!"

He was on the other side of hallway, doubled over, eyes teary and held out a hand twoards her.

"...Spock!"

She arrived just in time to watch his eyes roll up in the back of his head fall limp on the wall of the ship just as the storm raged around them.

A/n: Hope you liked! Thanks for reading ;) Reviews are very welcome


	2. Chapter 2

Everything was wrong.

As Jim looked around him, he felt a sense a dread that he hadn't in a long time. The Enterprise was out of balance, moving erratically in the middle of that space storm that had appeared out of nowhere and seemed to be endless. In fact, Chekov and the others had tried to measure the focus of the activity and the readings kept changing every second, so it was practically impossible to know how big that thing was.

His ship was in the middle of a wreck, her systems failing or about to, and he apparently was losing people too. He'd sent Uhura to retrieve Spock and now he'd lost her too. And Jim needed them, both of them, this was not a time to disappear and cuddle. He called Uhura and she answered after a while.

"Where are you? You're supposed to be both here! Whatever you're doing in there we have no time."

"He collapsed, Jim." Uhura said, sounding frantic. "I'm trying to wake him up again, but he's unconscious, not answering to anything. I can't just leave him here, Jim!"

No, she couldn't. Talk about horrible timing. He sighed.

"Ok, keep trying. If he wakes up and seems functional you both come here, we'll check him over after we get out of this place. If you can't, call whoever is left in sickbay to take him there. Kirk out."

Good. Now he was worried about the storm, the ship's endurance, the failing systems and Spock's shitty health. This was getting better by the moment, jeez. The storm seemed to be easing up a bit, as they weren't being jostled so severely, but they still couldn't see anything but red orange cloud like nebulose material, way-too-big shooting stars and a lot of space debris and small meteors. This was definitely not where they were supposed to be.

"Mr. Chekov, try to locate where we are, and by how much we've deviated. We need to find a way to get out of the storm."

"Aye, Captain."

Uhura was trying to wake Spock up with increasing desperation. She hated seeing hurt, sick or upset but specially if she didn't know why. She'd noticed that something was going on with him the last few days, but didn't imagine it could be this bad. And with that storm surrounding them, appearing out of nowhere... They would get out of this, they always did, but in that moment, Nyota couldn't imagine how. (Or if all would make it out)

No, she wouldn't think like that. Spock was going to be okay, he was strong, he could make it out. She couldn't lose him, not like this, not so soon, not so out of the blue. This was just an entirely untimely scare, nothing else. He would be okay and then she would scold him to hell and back for not telling her he was feeling unwell. He would see.

As if he had heard her, those dark eyes started to open.

"Spock? Can you hear me?"

"Nyota? I do not understand..." he said, while trying to sit up. "What happened? Why am I on the floor?"

"You collapsed, Spock. Don't you know what's wrong?"

Spock just looked thoroughly confused while he tried to pick himself up from the floor. He needed Nyota's help but he finally managed. He couldn't be completely sure if the room was spinning because of the adverse climate or it was him, and he didn't like it.

"Are you all right? Are you in any pain?"

"I am...fine." Fine is not acceptable, his own words came to haunt him. But fine had multiple definitions and now he needed multiple definitions. Everything was blurry and ever changing. He tried to focus on Nyota's face, looking at him worried.

"We need to get you to sickbay."

Just then the ship jolted and they both nearly fell.

"No. I need to go back to the bridge, help the Captain get out of this storm, whatever it is."

"Spock..."

"I will go to medical afterwards, I give you my word."

Nyota was worried, but seeing as some colour had returned to his face and Jim asked to send him if he was functional... All right. She would watching him closely anyways, because she didn't trust him to admit it if he really couldn't go back or if he was too weak.

Jim released a breath he didn't know he'd been when he'd been holding when the door opened and Spock and Uhura came back. Spock looked a little pale and shaken, but good enough to help them out in this crisis.

"You all right?"

The Vulcan just nodded and went to his post, while Uhura did the same, all the time looking at her boyfriend concerned. Maybe this was a bad idea and she should have made him go to see a doctor.

"Okay, so the storm seems to have eased up a bit, we've probably moved further away from the eye, but some of the lightning and the the debris seemed to have damaged some of our scans and one of the motors, so we don't really know..."

"It cannot be possible..."

"Spock?"

"Captain – this is not possible."

"What, Spock, what?"

Maybe he should had paid attention to Nyota and gone to sickbay to make sure he was okay, because what he was seeing made no sense. They would have noticed, right? This was a storm nothing else, with peculiarities considering the quadrant of space they were in, but nothing else. How could they have missed that?

"What is not possible?"

"It looks... it looks like the circulatory system of some creature, the way it is shaped."

That was indeed, impossible. The scanner would have picked up signs of life, there would have been some indication that they were not in space anymore but in some thing and its proportions would have been ridiculous.

"But it would have to be millions of miles big! This is space, Spock, nothing else. A freak storm that somehow reminded you of some anatomy book. You sure you're fit for duty?"

Spock closed his eyes, feeling the world spin around him again. He hated when that happened, when everything moved without his permission around him while the others stayed put. It is a mere spell of dizziness, he told himself, nothing important. But he couldn't deny what he saw. And what would that mean if he was right? What kind of being would they be facing? What if it decided to get rid of the intruders and disolved the enterprise and all of its inoccupants? What if... what if he was imagining everything?

"Captain, I..."

There was a voice, and suddenly he felt that his nightmares were eating up their reality. He saw his mother, he saw Jim dying, he saw Nyota...

"I'm taking you to sickbay, we'll figure this out later. Mr. Sulu, you know what to do."

And so Jim, more concerned for his friend than the whole storm debacle. It was obvious that they couldn't count on Spock for this, not the way he was. As he accempanied him to sickbay, Jim noticed that his breathing was laboured, his steps steps heavier and slower, and an unhealthy green flush on his face appeared. Jim put a hand on his cheek and almost got burned.

"You're burning up! Spock, what's going on with you, man?"

"Jim" Spock said, giving the Captain's first name a severity and weight it didn't normally have. "There's something more to this storm. We are in danger. I can feel it."

And then the ship went dark.

A/N: Review?


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